


Hurt

by Decepticonsensual



Series: He Jests at Scars [1]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 21:23:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5601472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Decepticonsensual/pseuds/Decepticonsensual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Prowl tests his top operatives, in more ways than one.  Gen, with a dash of Prowl/Getaway/Skids if you squint.  For an anonymous request on Tumblr, prompt:  "This hurts me more than it hurts you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hurt

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for robo-gore.

By the time Getaway managed to drag himself out of the trap, his feet were a mess of half-smelted metal, and the paint on his legs had blistered hideously from the heat of the smelting pool he’d been suspended above; there were even angry gunmetal-grey streaks where the chains had ripped the outer plating off entirely.

Skids’s first words - once he’d slammed the panic button to open the door of the cell from which he’d been watching Getaway’s escape attempt, and run almost the length of the base to the safe room where Prowl had taken Getaway to recover - were, “We need to get him to a medic.”

“We will.”  Prowl, kneeling in front of Getaway’s chair, didn’t look up from where he was rubbing a nanite gel over his moaning operative’s mangled feet.  “First Aid returns to base this evening; this will hold him until then.”

“First aid until I see First Aid,” Getaway murmured groggily.  Optics crinkling at the corners, he held out his fist towards Skids.  “Bomp.”

“You left him there too long,” Skids snapped at Prowl, then flinched as those cool blue optics lifted to his.  “Sir.”

Getaway burst out, “Hey!” but Prowl held up a hand, the other still moving over Getaway’s ankle in a soothing rhythm.

“Getaway could have invoked his safe word at any point.  As could you, if you wished to stop watching his escape.”

“Didn’t, though,” Getaway muttered sulkily.  “I made it out just fine, sport, so you can stick a cork in it.”

Skids dropped his gaze.  Prowl moved up to work on the burns on Getaway’s shins, and, after a moment, said quietly, “The benefits of combat training in a vacuum are extremely limited.  I could put you -” he glanced up briefly at Getaway - “through a series of increasingly complicated traps for months on end, but it would do you no good if you panicked and lost focus the moment you were exposed to pain.  Or if _you_ -” and here he fixed Skids with an icy look - “lost focus because your partner was in danger.  Which you did.  The puzzle I gave you to complete while Getaway made his attempt was abandoned partway through.  He passed his test; you failed yours.”

Getaway was looking at Skids with concern, now, and Skids felt his face heat… but he was surprised to hear Prowl say in a gentler voice, “Ignoring someone else’s danger and pain can be even more difficult than your own.”  His fingers smoothed over an already-treated burn on Getaway’s leg.  “But I need you both to be prepared for that.”

“Is that why you still watch every -”

“I watch,” Prowl cut him off, “in order to administer the tests.”  His optics dared Skids to say anything more about it, and Skids found himself backing down.

Instead, he went to sit next to Getaway, draping an arm around his shoulders, resting his forehead against Getaway’s cheek, and let the tension bleed out of him bit by bit.  The silence that settled over them, if not comfortable, was at least less frantic than before:  Prowl shifted Getaway’s leg onto his shoulder so that he could get better access to the burns on his thighs; Getaway visibly bit back a hey-boss-while-you’re-down-there joke; Skids noticed the joke Getaway didn’t make, and elbowed him, grinning filthily, until Getaway laughed and told him to frag off.  And if Prowl lingered in the room longer than he needed to - lingered, in fact, until First Aid’s return - neither operative mentioned it to him.


End file.
